Atari founder 'baffled' by Wii U

Honestly, who cares what Bushnell thinks. He hasn't really been involved in the video game industry since 1978, so I'm not sure that his opinion on the modern industry is particularly relevant.

Baffled. That SOUNDS like an Atari game

He's just pissed that Atari botched the chance to produce the NES in America for Nintendo back in 1983.

yeah, a credible statement from the one's who caused the Video Game crash. He didn't even cite any reason why it is not going to be a big success. End of an era? Yeah, that already happened long time ago, end of era for  Atari consoles.

I wonder if Bushnell has considered that it might just be a generation of gamers that are retiring because they now have kids and jobs.  Fear not, because this generation of gamers will pass down the joy of a good Zelda or Mario game to their children.  With this, I have no doubt. 

Anyone think it's weird that a Japanese console releases in the US before Japan?

He's right.  But Nintendo IPs and ports will keep this thing going for a good 5 years.  Meanwhile, a new $500 Sony and MS console are going to be less than appealing for what they're going to offer in terms of upgrades to current gameplay; you can't get much more photorealistic than what we already have.  And dev costs for new hardware are going to be through the roof.  Graphics whores are effectively killing console gaming by demanding iteration after iteration of the same visually-intensive FPS crap that we've been seeing for the past 8 years or so.  When did gaming become so much about how a game looks and nothing else?

Consoles will live on if somebody manufactures something along the lines of the much fabled 'steam console'. Plays like a PC with the accessability of a console.

Let's face it: the next generation will be the last generation for consoles, at least as we known them. The computing power on PC already greatly surpasses the creativity. Also to go above 1080p doesn't make much sense, due to the limits of the human eye. There won't be much that could not be done with the new HW. And please don't bring the true realism argument. Not everyone care about it, games like Mine Crafts are all but realistic and still they are the most popular. The only thing that we'll see with even more powerful HW will be more PC crybabies complaining that the games do not fully use their crappy gaming rig. 

I really don't know why the press still gives this guy the time of day. He has been out of touch for so long and has repeatedly demonstrated this. Who cares what he thinks?

Also, I'd like to point out that the video game industry has only collapsed once, and that was largely Atari's fault.

I can see down the road there being no dedicated consoles, but streaming content to a set-top box like Roku.  What I do think will happen is still having portable consoles like the 3DS and Vita.  Some gamers won't want to play on a smart phone.  I don't mind playing on a phone for a basic game, but they are too limiting for something that needs more advanced controls.

Wii U does suck and so does Sony and Microsoft - they'd be dead in the water without third parties.

It must hurt a father to watch his progeny dying from self destructive behavior and greed after growing so strong and influential.

hahahahaha. what does nolan bushnell know about video games these days????he has been out of the busines what 30 years???he is just pissed his former company crashed the market,is NO LONGER a contender in the console biz,and is nothing more than a meaningless little 3rd party game developer.atari lasted what 20 but the console lasted what 15 years tops.maybe the guy should play a wii u before he comments on it.i would like to throw a copy of E.T and PAC MAN at him just for fun and say thanks for trash like this

I think there will always be a market for consoles as long as people like to play games. By the way I hated my Atari when I was a kid.

Atari founder 'baffled' by Wii U

ROFL am sure hes not the only one, uncle Iwata also had no idea what he was doing when he put this POS together

Seems like a paradox statement. You can't mark the beginning of a new era without also marking the end of another. And if the previous era was memorable, of course you'll have more attachment to something you know than something you don't know. Is he trying to win a 'captain obvious' award?

he is very correct on this assesment nintendo has hat rock bottom... really sad to see it in this state developers wont even make games for it anymore because of its low cpu power.

How are Atari and Chuck E. Cheese doing these days Bushnell? Yeah, if anyone knows how to run a company into the ground this is the guy to talk to alright. lol

I wish everything would just go DD, It's getting irritating listen to Dev's wish Console would die already

I'm surprised he didn't say IOS & ipad gaming is the future or Onlive how's that doing

He sounds much more like a non-believer than a blabbermouth it seems.

Normally I would absolutely disagree, but after finally trying Steam last Friday, I can sort of see where he is coming from. However, I don't see consoles fading anytime in the next couple decades.

I would have liked to know why he thinks it won't succeed. This articular was a wast of time...

I really don't care much about any of this, but the host is so funny and entertaining I just keep watching.

Nintendo should have made a SNES II instead.

Sounds more like the ramblings of a game designer out of touch with current gamers.

he does have a point

lmfao@ atari , even though i liked tdu tdu 2 , , i must say ----what rights do they have to say --oh the wiii u the 720 the ps4 arent important,  

lets all face the facts one way or another all 3 contribute more to the market then atari ever did -in fact their only notable console was the 2600 after that they had failure after failure  5200 any one  that thing had a controller that broke easily according to avgn , 

jaguar i know for a fact was a flop other wise theyd still be here lol   

 the market is big enough for\ all 3 if this gen is any indicator sony just needs to start making some profit like nintendo has 

because atari is such a glaring success????? atari is not one to point out failure. Jaguar anyone? miserable flop. Wii U will be fine.

So what, then? Should have Nintendo kept the mindless arms race for merely "omg look at those graphics!!"

Eh, no, thanks. I rather welcome innovation. Ninty loves to risk it, but like it or not, the whole gaming industry has almost always followed on Nintendo's steps. Get over it.

No offense to Bushnell, but Nintendo essentially dominated Atari when Nintendo was actually looking for partnership with them, put the nails in Atari's coffin, especially with the Gameboy, & had a much longer consistent run as a relevant company.

Sure he went on to find success in Chuck E. Cheese's, but Yamauchi schooled him pretty hard on how to run a game company.

What kills Nintendo though is that their online play is just non-existent. Not trying to diss them but when you think of playing online, You think of Xbox and PS3, Nintendo doesn't even come up in the conversation. I think if they started building up their online aspect more then they'd be a far bigger threat to Microsoft and Sony.